Homeland Review: Keeping It In The Family

We’re two thirds of the way through Homeland now, and it only gets more compelling.

I haven’t seen a couple looking so flirty in the back of a Washington limo since Kevin Costner and Sean Young in No Way Out, and we know how that worked out.

But, bizarrely, it was Brody and wife Jessica – who were laughing all the way home, before curling up with the kiddies and watching TV, as this weeks’ writers seamlessly inserted the theme of family into this political/espionage/military thriller. We witnessed the collapse of Brody and Carrie’s intense but fleeting bond, and the beginning of the dysfunctional soldier’s emotional return to his wife and children.

The Brodys’ togetherness was highlighted by a trip to a political party, where they looked particularly glamorous together, and were treated to a ringside seat at a political scandal. While vaguely entertaining to UK viewers, this must have been hilarious to US followers of the Anthony Weiner photo scandal – far too close for coincidence, surely.

Meanwhile, another man’s love for his family proved to be the Achilles heel the CIA needed, in their hunt for Brody’s estranged comrade Walker. When the elusive soldier phoned his home’s answerphone just to hear his family’s voice, the security service was waiting. Ultimately, his wife’s loyalty to him trumped her patriotism and, although this particular storyline was nothing like as interesting as the changing dynamics around Brody’s kitchen table, the plot line served as an interesting counterpoint to all the others. We had CIA stalwart Saul’s battle to save his marriage, not to mention Brody’s own extremely complex goings-on.

At least these people had someone to fight for, while poor Carrie was left with the sobering realisation, “I’m going to be alone my whole life, aren’t I?” This was made clear when she turned up at Brody’s house, nominally to warn him that Walker was still alive, but really to… who knows not what. Wife Jessica looked on from the porch, and spurned lover Carrie looked at him beseechingly, all the power lying in what wasn’t said. There were no winners, and the lines between personal and professional were horribly, wonderfully blurred.

In the middle of all this, the FBI somehow managed to gun down an innocent man in a mosque – not a great PR move, and more evidence that these story makers are obviously happy to press every pressure point they can think of in a post-9/11 age.